Samuel Hearne & the Landscapes of Discovery.

Maclaren, I. S. Canadian Literature No. 103 (1984) 27-40.
  • Hudson's Bay Company.
  • Arctic Reading: Canada
 Preview 

In seeking the sublime and picturesque Hearn found in the northern landscape “what he had been taught to look for.” A landscape of barren hills and open marshes is appropriate for the barbarity of Hearne’s account.

The White Betrayal.

Unger, Hellmuth. Translated by Derick Wulff. New York: Brentano’s, 1928.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

Translation of Eisland, a romanticized juvenile novel about the Greely expedition, concentrating on the last year, what he calls “the greatest tragedy in the annals of the Arctic” (pace Franklin, etc).

Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer.

Loomis, Chauncey C. New York: Knopf, 1971.
  • 1870-73 US North Pole Expedition of Charles Hall (aboard USS Polaris).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An excellent account of the life of the most eccentric of Arctic explorers who essentially abandoned his family in Cincinnati to pursue his Arctic dreams. Unprepared and inexperienced in Arctic ways, he adopted to and adapted Eskimo ways of living and survival by living with them for long periods and learning from them their secrets of survival. Both his origins and demise are clouded in mystery.

Antarctic Days: Sketches of the Homely Side of Polar Life by two of Shackleton’s Men.

Murray, James and George Marston. London: Andrew Melrose, 1913.
  • 1907-09 British Antarctic Expedition (Shackleton on Nimrod).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

By two men of Shackleton’s Nimrod colleagues, and a preface by Shackleton himself. Murray was a biologist who served as chief of the base camp of the 1907-09 Nimrod expedition. George Marston was the official artist for both the Nimrod and the Endurance expeditions and drew illustrations of both. In his introduction Murray says that he did most of the writing and Marston “does the best of the illustrations.” Both were involved in the production of Aurora Australis.

Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole.

Nielsen, Jerri. New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • 1998-99 South Pole Winterover (NSF) at Amundsen-Scott Base.
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

This book created considerable controversy by the author going public with her medical condition, despite commitments not to call for special services in case of serious illness. Her cancer was the cause.

Eighteen Months on a Greenland Whaler

Faulkner, Joseph P. New York: Published for the Author, 1878.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

Rather charming and humorous writer who was a compositor, Civil War soldier, printer, etc., and nearly blind, before shipping to Greenland in May 1865-66.

Discovery

In an exhibition at the Discovery Center in Dundee, Scotland.
  • 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition (Scott aboard Discovery).
  • Antarctic Reading: Expeditions
 Preview 

In the exhibition at the Discovery Center in Dundee, Scotland, is a copy of Gulliver’s Travels given to Scott by Clements Markham. “C R Markham—this book went with me to the Arctic region. 1850. Presented to Robert F. Scott with all good wishes July 1901.” Likely to have been aboard Discovery, for Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition, 1901-1904.

The Journal of Rochfort Maguire, 1852-1854: Two Years at Point Barrow, Alaska, aboard HMS Plover in the Search for Sir John Franklin.

Maguire, Rochfort. Edited by John Bockstoce. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1988).
  • 1848-59 The Franklin Search.
  • Arctic Reading: Great Britain
 Preview 

During the Franklin Search it appeared that Franklin’s ships might well have made it through the Northwest Passage and might be met at the western end of the Passage at Point Barrow or the Baring Strait. The Plover was given the ultimate but fruitless duty of looking for that possibility.

A History of the Whale Fisheries, from the Basque Fisheries of the Tenth Century to the Hunting of the Finner Whale at the Present Date.

Jenkins, J. T. London: Witherby, 1921.
  • Whalemen's Reading
 Preview 

p. 178, [don’t know that this is relevant but worth checking—books here may refer to account books ]: … as they claim to know the procedure of the former company having their in their possession, they are first in the field and "that the design manifestly tending to the increase of nayjgation, and the benefit of all His Majesty's subjects, it is humbly hoped, will receive countenance and encouragement."

Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled: A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska.

Stuck, Hudson. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1914.
  • 1913-18 US Private Journeys round the Coast and Interior of Alaska (Hudson Stuck, “Archbishop of the Yukon”).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 77: The division of the labour of camping amongst four gave us all some leisure at night, and I found time to read through again The Cloister and the Hearth and Westward Ho! with much pleasure, quite agreeing with Sir Walter Besant’s judgment that the former is one of the best historical novels ever written. There are few more attractive roysterers in literature to me than Denys of Bergundy, with his “Courage, camarades, le diable est mort!” This matter of winter reading is a difficult one, because it is impossible to carry many books. My plan is to take two or three India-paper volumes of classics that have been read before, and renew my acquaintance with them. But reading by the light of one candle, though it sufficed our forefathers, is hard on our degenerate eyes.

The Voyages of Captain Scott….

Scott, Robert Falcon. Edited by Charles Turley, with an introduction by J. M. Barrie. London: Smith, Elder, 1914.
  • Antarctic Reading: General
 Preview 

A completely adulatory semi-biography, much from Scott’s writings. Ex:

A Yachting Cruise in the South Seas.

Wood, C. F. London: H. S. King and Co., 1875.
  • 1872- Private British Voyage to Sandwich Islands (Cunard Line).
  • Maritime Reading
 Preview 

p. 6-7, Chapter I: The weather now was intensely hot and fine, and that feeling of drowsiness and languor came over me, which I have always experienced on first reaching the tropics. Reading becomes a delusion and a snare, and to take up a book means to be asleep in a few minutes. On Sunday, May 11th, we sighted Rotumah. This was the first island I intended visiting, my object here being to ship some of the natives, to strengthen my present crew. No one ought to attempt a voyage through the South Sea Islands without carrying an extra crew of this kind. For in the first place there are so many islands where there is no anchorage or perhaps a very precarious one, that it is better to keep the vessel standing off and on, worked by the white crew, while those who wish to visit the island go away in the boat manned by the South Sea Islanders. A coloured crew, too, are better able to row about all day in the hot sun; they are cheery, light-hearted companions, and are always ready, and enjoy the fun of diving into the water after any shell or piece of coral that one may fancy whilst rowing over the reefs.